The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

In an event well known to history, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on the morning of June 28, 1914. A little over a month later, Europe was at war. Christopher Clark’s book looks beyond that fateful morning to illuminate what brought Europe to such a crisis point in the summer of 1914 as to make it ripe for war. The polarization of alliances, fragmented foreign policies, ineffectual leadership, and general and persistent unrest in the Balkans all helped to contribute to this climate. Clark looks in great depth at these issues and then goes further, from the moment-by-moment reactions to the assassination and to the resulting declarations of war. It is this careful, comprehensive focus on events both before and after the assassination that makes Clark’s book stand out amongst others on the genesis of World War One. A detailed, meticulously researched account of a fractured Europe and its inevitable descent into war.

Review

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